Violate International Law, Bomb Syria

Elite Newspapers: Violate International Law, 

Bomb Syria

John Glaser, 

An editorial in yesterday’s Washington Post urges President Obama to use the threat of a U.S. bombing campaign to achieve political ends on a transition deal in the Syria talks.

Obama “could force” a diplomatic agreement for a transition government in Syria “by presenting Mr. Assad with the choice of accepting them or enduring U.S. airstrikes.” With what must be Martian logic, the Post argues that Obama’s refusal to use the threat of violence is why atrocities continue to be committed in Syria.

The United Nations Charter, to which the United States is a high contracting party, prohibits “all members” from “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” The 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, to which the U.S. is also a signatory, establishes the principle that if a country threatens to use force during diplomatic negotiations, then all resulting treaties are invalid. “A treaty is void if its conclusion has been procured by the threat or use of force in violation of the principles of international law embodied in the Charter of the United Nations,” it states.

Back in August, the New York Times was even more blatant in its advocacy of criminal government when it published an Op-Ed titled, “Bomb Syria, Even If It Is Illegal.”

Just consider for a moment how corrupted the political dialogue in this country has to be for mainstream voices to openly and proudly call for their own government to commit war crimes.

http://antiwar.com/blog/2014/01/23/elite-newspapers-violate-international-law-bomb-syria/